Tag Archive | "asu"

I’m on cloud NINE after this weekend! Here’s a breakdown of the plus/minus from the appy state game.

appy st

Season

Avg +/-

Minutes

Player

+/-

+/-

Per Game

Green

17

100

20.0

35.0

Brown

-5

75

15.0

28.6

Eddie

14

70

14.0

33.8

Barksdale

11

57

11.4

20.2

Wood

12

39

7.8

21.6

Raines

2

34

6.8

23.0

van Zegeren

3

30

6.0

14.2

Johnston

-6

2

0.4

11.4

Rankin

10

-1

-0.2

10.3

Donlon

-

-5

-1.0

1.0

Beyer

-3

-8

-1.6

1.0

Patrick

-

-13

-2.6

6.7

Racer

-

-18

-3.6

1.7

TEAM

11

72

14.4

Green is head and shoulders above the rest of the team in plus/minus. His worth, if it wasn’t already apparent via your eyes watching the games, also shows up on the stat sheet. Brown had a rough go of it against appalachian state but he’s been solid this year. As has Eddie (although he had a bad +/- against unc-g despite his huge scoring effort).

The surprise is Barksdale — he has had a solid +/- most of the year despite struggling to score. C.J. had a solid game against the mountaineers though. He had a season high 10 points, 7 rebounds, and 2 assists, and really picked up the slack for Raines who was in foul trouble. He runs all over the court on defense helping double in the post and on screens on the perimeter flashing out on the guard coming off the pick. C.J.’s +/- should be around +7 per game based on the number of minutes he plays, but instead it is +11.4. That tells you something is going right when he’s on the court. So while he has struggled on offense early on, he is still playing well in my opinion.

The Virginia Tech Hokies were 20.5-point favorites going into today’s game against the mountaineers of appalachian state. The game, however, was a nail biter from the opening tip until about 8 minutes left in the second half when the Hokies built an 11-point lead and started to pull away from a tired asu squad.

Erick Green scored a career-high 27 points to lead Virginia Tech to an 87-76 win. In doing so, the senior guard became the first Hokie to score 20 or more points in each of his first five games of a season since Bryant Matthews did so during the 2003-04 campaign.

Green eclipsed his career high in points for the second straight game, while junior forward Jarrell Eddie continued to put up some big numbers as well. Eddie, who is coming off a career-best 28 points vs. unc-g-spot, scored 23 points against the ‘neers.

Not to be outdone, true freshman Marshall Wood notched a career-high in points with 13. CJ Barksdale was one point shy of tying his career high of 11.

With the win, Tech improved to 5-0, marking the first time the Hokies have started a season 5-0 since the 1984-85 season. And while critics will point to VT’s relatively weak schedule thus far, keep in mind that the Hokies have traditionally played weaker teams earlier in the season and have usually found a way to lose a game or two they probably should have won.

Not this year. At least not through the first five games.

Other notes:

Green has made 31 consecutive free throws and hasn’t missed one in the last three games. He went 4-4 vs. vmi, 16-16 vs. uncg, and 11-11 against appy state today.

For the first time this season, no Hokie registered double digit rebounds. For the second game in a row, Marshall Wood led the Hokies in rebounds, nabbing 8 vs. asu.

Happy Hokie Day, y’all! Please note we will likely not have video highlights for this game, and +/- will be a few days late as we all take time to spend with our families this Thanksgiving Weekend. If you want, you can call me and I’ll yell, “BRRRRRRRAHHHHH” every time the Hokies dunk the ball.

On Friday, head to the Cassell for an appetizer before you watch the Hokies pound the hoos on Saturday. I don’t think XM advertising will prove to be Nostradamus*.

Tech takes on the mountaineers!!!… of appy state. appalachian state comes in 0-3 against Division 1 teams with losses to in-state high point, ecu, and campbell. They were outscored 89-72 in those games against those power programs.

Jay Canty, a 6’6″ transfer from xavier, is the mountaineers’ best player. This is a young team, at least in their starting lineup, and aren’t ready for ACC competition. So, I’m predicting a big Hokie blowout (maybe even a Bear Fight?) before the Tech schedule gets challenging with iowa, oklahoma state, and @wvu coming up next.

Jarell Eddie and Erick Green are coming off career highs of 28 and 26 respectively on Monday at unc-g.

*In the first VT football program of this season, XM had a full page ad talking about following your favorite team, VT, on XM radio. In the ad there was a picture of an XM receiver screen with the VT-uva game on it. The screen showed: VT 14, uva 54 – 3rd quarter. I hope that ad person got fired. They only have 55 points combined in their last 7 meetings with the Hokies.